The Violence of Existing
Chapter 3
Email: marenfic@yahoo.com
Summary: This fic
takes off after Buffy is brought back to life in Bargaining (Season 6).
won’t happen, but AtS Season 3 will occur as they did
until Connor is kidnapped. From there,
events diverge a little, although I’ll be retaining some elements.
back as angry teen Connor—he is lost to Angel for good.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters.
Pairings: B/?; references to A/C,
for it.
Rating: Some parts R
for language, some parts NC-17 for sexual situations
Warning: This
There will be some light BDSM themes with consensual sex, and there will
be character death. Read at your own
risk.
Feedback: Please!!!
A/N: Italics
generally indicate direct thoughts of characters unless they indicate
emphasis—it should be easy to tell which is which.
************************************************************************
~~~Two Years Later~~~
The woman stood at the bar, her eyes on the mirror that
spanned the wall in front of her, the reflection of dozens of colorful bottles
of liquor neatly lined up in front of it giving the impression that the bar
could never possibly run out of stock.
She watched as the masses of new-age
debutantes, with their daddy’s money and their mommy’s bottle-blonde hair,
gyrated to the hip-hop noise that was coming out of the huge black speakers in
pounding waves of nearly tangible sound.
Each one was staging a show for the boys who cast appraising, hungry
eyes at them, and the woman knew what they wanted.
the man of their dreams-- the father of their future children-- their provider
when daddy died from screwing his mistress.
She felt nothing but contempt for them.
Others were here to move until they were sweating and breathing hard,
here to rub up against willing, firm bodies until they felt the twinge and
flood of arousal, here to tease themselves and those around them with inaccessible
sexuality. For these, the woman felt
something not unlike sympathy. She
remembered a time when she had been one of them.
Silly little short
schoolgirl skirts. Think that five times fast.
She looked down at the shot glass in front of her and
considered the amber liquid inside. It
would be so easy to teach them all a lesson about what these boys who were masquerading
as men really wanted. They didn’t want
wives, and they didn’t want teases. They
wanted a woman who would fuck and then leave without wanting anything else, and
she knew that from experience. They
wanted a woman like her, and it would take her less than 60-seconds to prove
it.
Her thoughts were momentarily distracted when she felt a
large, strong hand caress her black leather clad ass.
touched her without her permission always ended up regretting it.
her irritation, and she relaxed again.
This man had privileges that others didn’t.
“Contemplating body shots again, Diana?” he asked, his
English accent tinged with the droll sarcasm that he had honed to near
perfection, one eyebrow raised in mock censure.
The woman rolled her eyes at the mirror and then slammed
back the tequila before turning sideways to face him.
“Why Wes, you know you’re the last guy to have had that
pleasure,” she answered, leaning against the bar and running one hand
seductively across the part of her hip that her low-waisted
pants left partially exposed before dragging the tip of her finger over her
stomach and up her chest until it rested between the cleavage visible out of
the top of the black lace shirt. She
gestured to the empty shot glass with her head while her finger traced a light,
almost absent-minded path between her breasts.
“I can order another one if you want to do it again.”
His blue-gray eyes sparkled with interest, but he ignored
her offer. “How many have you had
already?” he asked.
She dropped her hand from her chest and shrugged, her
boredom supremely evident even in the barely noticeable movement.
He casually leaned toward her until his lips were brushing
the sensitive skin of her ear. “Have you
eliminated the target yet?” he asked, his voice a soft, seductive whisper.
Stepping into him and turning so that her back faced his
front, she maneuvered them until he had his back against the bar and they were
both fully facing the interior of the club.
Wesley wrapped one arm around her waist and leaned down to lightly kiss
the delicate skin of her neck. She
turned her head towards him and he obligingly dipped his head so she could
whisper in his ear.
“See those twins sitting in that guy’s lap in the
corner?” When Wes nodded, she continued,
“Yeah, well, so does the target. He’s up
in the balcony and he’s had his eyes on them all night.
think he’s planning on a double-mint dinner.
Once he’s in the open I’ll take him out.”
“What do you need me to do?” he asked.
She ran one of her deceptively small hands lightly over the strong
arm he had wrapped around her waist and wiggled against him until she could
feel his hardness pressing into the small of her back.
she allowed herself a small smile.
“This will be an easy target.
don’t you handle the getaway?” she said.
It sounded like a suggestion, but Wesley knew it
wasn’t. When the Slayer laid out a plan,
it wasn’t open for negotiation. He’d
learned that the hard way a long time ago when he’d defied her order to leave
her alone with a target. When he’d shown
up, ready to help, she’d taken one look at him, shook her head impatiently, and
knocked him out cold with a hard right hook to the temple.
she had icily informed him that if he ever pulled a stunt like that again he’d
have a freshly opened neck wound. He
didn’t believe she’d actually do it, at least not mostly, but he toed the line
with her nonetheless. His acquiescence
didn’t prevent him from feeling supremely irritated at being left out of the
action, however.
At that moment the man from across the room stood and, with
one twin on each arm, made his way toward the front door.
Slayer stood up straight, her body tensing in
anticipation. “Bring the car to the
alley across the street. Give me
10.” Then she pulled away from his
embrace and subtlety followed the target out the back door of the club.
The alley that ran behind the club was dark, with fetid air
and sticky pavement, just like every other alley
that Slayer had become intimately familiar with over the past year and a
half. Oddly enough, despite their
repulsive qualities, she felt at home in the alleys.
evil humans came to die at the hands of the Slayer.
annihilated her prey.
Slayer had come to think of herself as Death.
way, but it was her job. More than that,
it was her destiny. Her gift
death that would be a gift to the world, but Slayer knew that it was the death
that she could dole out to others that was the real offering to mankind.
the orders of a government agency, or that she got paid extremely well for
it? It was still her gift and she was a
generous benefactor.
Skills to pay the
bills, sayeth the Beastie Boys.
She stood quietly in the alley, giving her eyes a second to
adjust in the dark. She could see the
target slinking down the wall towards the front of the club.
human and shifted back to its natural demon form.
trunks that made up its legs as well as its broad, razored
back. She followed in quick pursuit, her
movements fluid and silent. It was
startled when she tapped it on its scaly shoulder, and it spun toward her with
a roa roar of fury at being interrupted in its dinner hunt.
blonde woman in black leather and lace standing in a loose fighting stance
before it.
“Slayer,” he growled, as he flexed his back like a hissing
cat, the razors spreading into a deadly arc.
She smiled grimly. “Is
there some flyer with my picture on it that gets handed out at Demons ‘R
Us? Cause I think I would haremeremembered meeting a sharp-dressed guy like you,” she said.
He simply smiled back at her, and she couldn’t help but
notice that his teeth matched the razors arching out of his back.
He hadn’t looked too bad in the dossier she’d been given, but obviously
they’d left out a few details. Of course
any other asset would have taken him out with a gun from a distance, but that
wasn’t the way the Slayer worked. Usually
she wanted-- no. . . . needed-- the sweat and pain and adrenaline of
hand-to-hand combat.
things that made her feel alive and killing was one of them.
target. That time she hadn’t wanted to
touch her prey—had only wanted to complete her assignment as quickly as
possible.
Slayer advanced on her prey and let her supernatural senses
take over. She wasn’t afraid, was never
afraid—it would seem she couldn’t stay dead anyway.
from the club and the sound of laughing drunk humans stumbling over themselves
just ahead on the lighted street, Slayer pivoted on one foot and struck the
target in the face with the steel re-enforced heel of her boot. The roundhouse kick
was seamless, flowing, and nearly too fast for the naked eye to detect and the
demon staggered back into the wall, the razors on his back making a blunt
screeching noise as they connected with the brick of the club’s outer wall.
counter-attack, she began to hit it with a series of right and left jabs, using
its dense face as a punching bag. With a
roar of rage, the demon opened its mouth full of razor teeth and snapped at her
hand. Slayer was just able to redirect
her blow to hit its chest instead of its snapping face, but the change in
motion provided just enough weakness in her attack for the target to retaliate.
chest, and she could feel her breastbone crack.
She landed heavily on the pavement, but had flipped herself back onto
her feet before the demon had time to take advantage of her position.
As the fight continued, she began to hum inside.
blood, the pungent smell of demon and human exertion combined with the
endorphin rush of the pain and the adrenaline rush of the fight and she reveled
in it. It seemed that she had repressed this
. . . euphoria? . . . for most of her time as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
more. It was what it meant to be
living—for her anyway-- and she embraced it with a fervor that she had felt for
nothing else since being thrown out of Heaven.
In less than 5 minutes the target was lying dead at her
feet, its thick neck sliced nearly all the way through its dense
musculature. Slayer, breathing heavily
from the fight, bent over and pushed up the leg of her leather pants so that
she could re-sheath the dagger she’d used to kill the target.
freely onto the pavement under her before looking at the gaping slice on her
forearm with surprise. She hadn’t even
felt it happen.
She felt it now.
Hurrying toward the alley where she knew Wes was waiting,
she stepped out into the brightly illuminated street in front of the club.
side and ignored the catcalls coming from the crowd of people still waiting to
be admitted. Her strong strides slowed
as Wesley pulled up beside her in her silver McLaren
SLR, and opening the passenger door, she slid into the soft black leather
interior.
“Give me your shirt,” she demanded as he sped away.
He raised on eyebrow at her in questioning disbelief.
accepted my offer of help, and now you want to ruin my shirt?”
She simply glared at him and stuck out one blood-covered
hand. “I’ll buy you a new one.
Off. This is a serious violation
of the ‘no bleeding in my car’ rule.”
Wesley mverevered the car into a nearly empty parking lot
and put it in park. Stretching one hand
over his shoulder, he grabbed the back of the neck and pulled the black long-sleeved
shirt over his head in one swift motion.
Slayer couldn’t help but appreciate the view of his exposed chest.
training partner, his physique had . . . improved.
She grabbed the proffered shirt and wrapped it around her
shredded arm, tying it tightly over the wound with the sleeves.
window as Wes put the car back in gear and sped off toward her loft.
was deep in thought, but they’d be wrong.
Wes settled into driving and waited for her to come out of
her post-killing trance. For the past
year they had been fighting together nightly, mostly doing routine sweeps of
vamp and demon hot-spots in the city.
Less often, he had accompanied her on her agency assignments.
the target she was quiet and withdrawn.
For some reason, those killings affected her in a way that normal
slaying did not, but it wasn’t a topic that she cared to discuss, so he
pretended not to notice. Both of them
were very good at preteg nog not to notice things that the other didn’t want to
talk about. She pretended that she
hadn’t noticed he had kept a woman locked in his closet for a while several months
ago, or that he got a haunted look in his eyes every time they were out early
enough to see a father laughing and playing with his son.
got just a little jumpy when she was in enclosed spaces or that despite her
refusal to talk about anything Sunnydale related, she sent a generous check to
her sister each month—anonymously of course.
As they neared her loft, Slayer blinked several times in
rapid succession and looked at the illuminated clock on the dash.
her most recent assignment.
Time to call
Harris—the prick.
Picking up the cell phone that was cradled in its car port,
she quickly dialed the number that Harris had given her after her agency
graduation, just before he’d had her tranqued up and dumped
in a random abandoned building on the outskirts of the city.
and nothing else. Luckily he hadn’t lied
about the off-shore bank account and if she’d still been the girl she had once
been, if she’d still been Buffy, she would have squealed in excitement when she
called to check the balance. Now, thact act that she had more money to her name than she could ever hope to use did
little more than give her a vague sense of security.
it, but the possessions gave her little joy.
Joy?
No, Slayer didn’t feel joy anymore, or any really extreme
positive emotions outside of those she felt in the middle of a fight.
feel the more negative emotions either.
She wasn’t ever sad, she wasn’t depressed, she didn’t get anxious or
worried—she just existed.
The phone rang three times before Harris answered.
“The target’s toast.
No comps,” Slayer answered. She
smiled a tiny smile when she heard his sigh of annoyance.
follow DPE communication guidelines.
“I assume you meant to say that there were no
complications?” he asked.
“Bingo,” she replied.
“I need your code name for verification purposes,” he
persisted, ignoring her continued attempts to get under his skin.
This time it was Slayer who was irritated.
Slayer and that should be enough.
“Artemis,” she gritted out, and then snapped the phone
closed without waiting for him to answer.
******************
Slayer winced as Wesley finished stitching up the cut on her
arm. After unwrapping her arm and assessing
the damage, they could see that the demon had sliced it almost completely to
the bone. Even still, it would be
completely healed in a matter of days.
Wes looked up when he felt her wince and gave her a slow,
sexy smile. He nudged her knees apart with
his body so that he was standing between her legs as she sat on the stainless
steel surface of her dining table. one hand up to her neck, he lightly trailed his fingers across the skin until
they were touching the nape. The little
downy hairs there were standing up from the contact, and he reveled in the feel
of her soft skin on one side of his hand and her silky blonde hair on the
other. He began tracing the pattern of black
ink that he knew stained the skin under his finger.
warrior.
“Diana? Experiencing pain?
I thought you liked the feel of the needle piercing your skin,” he
murmured. His exploring hand dipped down
to her waist and he caressed her exposed stomach until he reached her navel and
the metal bar that ran through it.
Tweaking it gently, he leaned in until his lips were nearly touching
hers, his eyes staring languidly into her hazel green depths.
. very . . . much.” He punctuated the
last two words with increasing pressure on her piercing, twisting the metal bar
until it pulled her skin tight. Her eyes
darkened with a tinge of lust, and Wesley quickly dropped to his knees in front
of her, let go of the metal, and laved the reddened skin of her navel with his
tongue, his hands wrapped around her leather-clad hips.
intake of breath, her hands wrng ing in his hair to pull him closer.
piercing and then continued the soothing ministrations with his lips and
tongue.
She felt the stirrings of arousal as he teased her with his
mouth, and she surrendered to the sensations.
Fighting made heel eel like she might actually be alive . . .
few precious moments.
Slayer felt one of his hands move to undo her pants and she
leaned back and lifted her hips to help him slide them down and off.
floor, a pile of leather with a tiny scrap of shiny satin nestled inside.
the warm skin of her backside, but it quickly turned to one of pleasure when
Wesley’s mouth returned to her skin, trailing hot kisses down her stomach
toward her exposed center. He teased the
tight expanse of skin that spanned the distance between her belly button and
her curls with nips, but he was careful to avoid the other inked design that
adorned the alabaster skin of her pelvis.
Wes never touched that one—even if she hadn’t forbidden it,
he had no desire. He felt himself
hardening at the smell of her arousal, and then he was completely erect as she
impatiently grabbed a handful of his hair and roughly pushed his face into her
sex. Obeying her unspoken demand, he
nuzzled into her center and, finding her clit with his lips, he suckled it hard
into his mouth and flicked it with the tip of his tongue.
pressed even harder against him. Taking
advantage of her raised position, he slipped her legs over his shoulders and
slid his hands under her so that he could grip the delectable curve of her
ass. He liked to feel her muscles ripple
in response to his ministrations.
Slayer shuddered when he pushed his tongue into her wet
depths, and then cried out softly when he moved one hand from underneath her to
caress the nub at her center. Then he
was switching positions so that one finger, then two, were inside her and his
tongue was back on her clit. Normally,
she would need much more pressure, much more carefully applied pain before she
could come on Wesley’s mouth and fingers, but the adrenaline of the fight was
still fresh in her blood and the pain in her arm and her already mending
breastbone had her body primed. When he
used his teeth to bite down gently on her clit, the combination was enough and
she threw back her head and gritted her teeth as her lower body convulsed in
orgasm.
He felt her inner muscles fluttering around his fingers, and
was slightly surprised, but all of his thoughts fled as he looked up to see her
head thrown back, her still-covered breasts arched into the air, her long hair
brushing over the stainless surface of the table.
cock free of the confines of his own pants, and then he was gripping her hips
and pushing himself into her tight, wet depths.
His breath whistled through his teeth as he grit them, struggling to
maintain control at the feel of her incredible heat and the clutching pull of
her inner muscles. He stayed completely
still until she stopped pulsing around him and opened her eyes.
“Shirt. Off.” It was
his turn to command.
Her lips turned up in a lazy smile, and she pulled her shirt
over her head and threw it to the side.
She felt the additional surge of blood to his cock as it leapt inside
her and she leaned forward until her bra-clad breasts were brushing against his
naked chest. She wrapped her legs around
his waist, seating him more firmly within herself and began to lick the outline
of his clavicle as her small hands played over the smooth expanse of his
back. She trailed her lips up until she
reached his neck and dragging her tongue over his scar, she dug her nails into
the muscles of his back and tightened her inner muscles around him.
Wesley groaned in pain and pleasure and, placing a hand on
her fractured breastbone, he pushed her hard, back against the table.
using her elbows to support her upper body as she laid spread before him.
hand cruelly gripping her hip, the other moving from one breast to the
other. The fabric of her bra was sheer
and he could see her dark aureoles and the nipples that were puckered and
pressing hard against the fabric. He
cupped each breast in turn, rolled each nipple between his fingers, and lightly
pinched them in time with his inward thrusts.
For each pinch he was rewarded with a tightening of the muscles that
surrounded him. Being inside her, with
her slayer strength, was unlike being inside any other woman.
some time, especially not since . . .
well, not for a long while. But
each time he had to struggle for control while he brought her to pleasure.
Slayer’s breath came out in quick pants as she rocked
herself against Wes, pulling at his hips with her strong thighs, demanding that
he go harder . . . faster. She arched
her back, pressing her breasts into his hand.
She could feel the muscles in her body tighten in anticipation of her coming
orgasm, and she wavered for moment on the edge of pleasure and detached
interest in the workings of her body.
When his hand left her breasts to find her belly button and twist at her
piercing once again, all thoughts left her mind and when his rough thumb found
her clit and pressed hard into it as he pounded his cock into her wet heat, she
felt the orgasm rip through her and she surrendered to the pleasure.
He felt her convulse around him and groaned in relief that
he wouldn’t have to hold back anymore.
Two more hard thrusts, and then he was calling out her name as he
exploded inside her. “Diana,” he moaned,
and held her tightly to him as he came, the pleasure undeniably intense.
Somewhere deep inside, Slayer twinged
at the name, but she no longer let him see her annoyance.
on calling her when he was in the throes of his orgasm.
came. There were other things that were
always the same—he always carefully avoided her lips, her scar, and the tattoo
that marked her pelvis with his mouth, and seconds after they were finished the
feelings of emptiness and detachment returned.
Still, she was glad to have Wes in her life, as her partner
. . . of sorspanspan style='mso-spacerun:yes'> It was better with him
than it had been with the others and she was able to forget and feel for a few
precious minutes. The ones that had
come before Wes had either been too afraid to hurt her to be able to deliver
the right amount of stimulation or they had been too into trying to humiliate
her before she made it painfully clear to them that she wasn’t into that.
delicate façade of her petite body, and he wasn’t interested in her humiliation.
again.
When he fucks me, I
know that I’m real.
Wes felt her unwrap her legs, and he pulled himself out of
her. He watched, his breath still
irregular, his heart still pounding, as she pulled herself up and slid off the
table. Halfway across the room, she
slipped off her bra and left it carelessly on the floor as she made her way to
the bathroom that was situated near the middle of the large loft-space that she
called home. It divided the space nearly
in half.
kitchen and dining area and was enclosed with solid walls, but the large
free-standing shower and the tub were encased on one side with clear glass
blocks. She had once told him that the
first thing she’d done when she moved in was to have those walls torn out and
replaced with glass. She hadn’t had to
tell him that it was because she felt the walls closing in on her
knew that if he walked over to the opposite side of the loft, the side that
held her bed and living area, that he would be able to see the outline of her
naked body under the cascading water. It
was tempting, but he knew that she expected for him to be gone when she
reemerged, and he had business to attend to anyway.
bloodied and ruined shirt, quietly left, locking the deadbolt on the steal door
behind him with his key.
********